Efficient Video Communication over Lossy Channels
by
Aggelos K. Katsaggelos
Northwestern University, Department of ECE, Evanston IL 60208

Supporting video communication over lossy channels such as wireless networks and the Internet is a challenging task due to the stringent quality of service (QoS) required by video applications and the many channel impairments. Two important QoS characteristics for video are the degree of signal distortion and the transmission delay. Another important consideration is the cost associated with transmission, for example, the energy consumption in the wireless channel case and the cost for differentiated services in the Internet (with DiffServ) case.

Emphasis will be primarily given on video compression for transmission over wireless channels, but similar results can be obtained for transmission over networks with differentiated services. We consider the joint adaptation of the source coding parameters, such as the quantization step-size and prediction mode, along with the physical layer resources, such as the transmission rate and power. Our goal is to provide acceptable QoS while taking into account system constraints such as the energy utilization. We propose a general framework that allows a number of "resource/distortion" optimal formulations for balancing the requirements of different applications.

Date received: March 2, 2005